Re: [Bug-gnulib] Re: alloca.c

[Paul Eggert]

> From: Richard Stallman <address@hidden>
> Date: Sat, 07 Dec 2002 16:27:01 -0500
> cc: address@hidden
> 
>     > In particular, those changed conditionals on HAVE_STRING_H
>     > etc. won't work when the macro is not defined.
> 
>     I don't see why they won't work, as a macro that is not defined
>     evaluates to zero in an #if.
> 
> I had forgotten about that.  Was that true in pre-ANSI C also?

Yes.

>       On
>     older platforms that do not have size_t, config.h is supposed to
>     define size_t; that is how it now works for Emacs and for other
>     programs that use alloca.c.
> 
> Ok, size_t should work.  Is this convention documented anywhere?
> When was it adopted?

That convention is documented in the Autoconf manual under
AC_TYPE_SIZE_T.  The first mention I found of that macro was 1995.